This instance of RINF Describe at rinf-describe.matdata.eu is operated by Matdata BV, which is the controller of the personal data described below (see the legal notice for our company details). Questions about this statement or your data: [email protected].
RINF Describe has no accounts, cookies, analytics or tracking. The only personal data we process is your IP address and the technical details of your requests, in our web server's access log, to run and secure the service. That log is deleted automatically after at most 30 days.
Our reverse proxy (Caddy) logs every request to this site: your IP address, the date and time, the requested address (which includes the resource you look at and the text you type in the search box), the response status and size, and request headers such as your browser's user agent and the referring page. Passwords and cookies are not logged; this site uses neither.
Log rotation and retention. The access log is rotated whenever it reaches 50 MB, which with current traffic happens about once a day. Rotated log files are compressed and deleted automatically 30 days after rotation, and no more than 10 rotated files are kept, so older files can be deleted even sooner. The logs stay on our own server in Belgium; they are not shared, sold or used to profile visitors.
The application containers behind the proxy do not keep their own record of your IP address: the web container's access log is switched off, and the API only sees requests coming from the web container.
Purpose and legal basis. Operating the service, diagnosing faults and detecting abuse, based on our legitimate interest in running a reliable and secure website (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR).
Requests to rinf-describe.matdata.eu pass through Cloudflare, Inc., which we use as content delivery network and to protect the site against attacks. Cloudflare processes your IP address and request data on our behalf for that purpose and may do so outside the European Economic Area, under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and the European Commission's standard contractual clauses. See Cloudflare's privacy policy.
On pages with a map (sections of line, for example), the background map is loaded by your browser
from tile.openstreetmap.org, run by the OpenStreetMap Foundation, and the railway
overlay from tiles.openrailwaymap.org. Both receive your IP address, user agent and
this page as referrer (OSMF privacy
policy, OpenRailwayMap).
The infrastructure data is published by the infrastructure managers through ERA's Register of Infrastructure (RINF). Our server downloads it in advance, for our RINF Atlas instance. When a resource is not in that index, our server queries ERA's SPARQL endpoint for it; only the resource's identifier is sent, not your IP address.
A few things are kept in your browser's local storage so they survive a reload: your light or dark theme (only if you pick one), that you have seen the first-visit tour, and the latest release you have seen in “What's new”. This data never leaves your browser; you can remove it by clearing this site's data. “Share” and “Copy” only write to your clipboard when you click them.
Under the GDPR you can ask us for access to, rectification or erasure of your personal data, ask us to restrict its processing, and object to processing based on our legitimate interest. Write to [email protected]; to find your requests in the access log we need your IP address and the approximate time of your visit. You can also lodge a complaint with the Belgian Data Protection Authority (Gegevensbeschermingsautoriteit / Autorité de protection des données), Drukpersstraat 35, 1000 Brussels, www.dataprotectionauthority.be.
| Operator | Matdata BV (besloten vennootschap) |
|---|---|
| Registered office | Bogaertstraat 11, 1910 Kampenhout, Belgium |
| Company number | 1015.480.825 (Crossroads Bank for Enterprises) |
| VAT | BE 1015.480.825 |
| [email protected] | |
| Website | matdata.eu |
RINF Describe is open source software (source code, MIT licence). This instance is provided free of charge on a best-effort basis, without any guarantee of availability or accuracy. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the European Union Agency for Railways; the RINF data remains subject to ERA's terms of use.
Last updated: 30 October 2026